Mitch Albom Quotes

So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things.
The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, to your community around you, to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

I made such a fool of myself,” she lamented.
“Love does not make you a fool.”
“He didn’t love me back.”
“That does not make you a fool, either.”
“Just tell me …” Her voice cracked. “When does it stop hurting?”
“Sometimes never.

But my father, a thief in many ways, had robbed me of my concentration.

At a certain point, your life is more about your legacy to your kids than anything else.

Everyone is in such a hurry. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running. Once you start running, it’s hard to slow yourself down.

Sometimes during the night, your father awakened. He rose from his bed, staggered across the room, and found the strength to raise the window sash. He called your mother's name with what little voice he had, and he called yours, too, and your brother, Joe. And he called for Mickey. At that moment, it seemed, his heart was spilling out, all the guilt and regret. Perhaps he felt the light of death approaching. Perhaps he only knew you were all out there somewhere, in the streets beneath his window. He bent over the ledge. The night was chilly. The wind and damp, in his state, were too much. He was dead before dawn.

There is everything you know and there is everything that happens. When the two do not line up, you make a choice.

"Did I lose you?"
"Never."

I don't know what it is about food your mother makes for you, especially when it's something that anyone can make - pancakes, meat loaf, tuna salad - but it carries a certain taste of memory.

A book with the genuine power to stir and comfort its readers.

"It's nice that you spend a day with your mother,' she said. "Children should do it more often.

Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do.

"It's such a big world," She'd say wistfully. "Something is always happening somewhere."

This time was different. The tools of this era — phones, computers — enabled people to move at a blurring pace. Yet despite all they accomplished, they were never at peace.

"Now that child reminds me of something our sages taught. When a baby comes into the world, it's hands are clenched, right? Like this?"
He made a fist.
"Why? Because a baby, not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say 'The whole world is mine.'
"But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned the lesson."
What lesson? I asked.
He stretched open his empty fingers.
"We can take nothing with us.